


Convenience Store Comrades

by XMezumiiru



Category: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24989440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XMezumiiru/pseuds/XMezumiiru
Summary: A drabble about everyone's favorite mini-boss turned best friend. This scene takes place the night before the player group enters the Black Building to bring the Beacon of Sorrow to the top.~Written by DM Busou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Dream Dust





	Convenience Store Comrades

Ibaraki-doji considered himself a strong, capable, independent oni. Snorting, he plopped on the musty mattress he’d scavenged from one of the nearby apartment buildings ages ago. He couldn’t find a futon big enough for his frame and while the mattress wasn’t ideal, it was at least big enough. The last thing Ibaraki wanted to do was sleep on cold, hard linoleum. 

He was restless, and ran his one remaining hand through unruly, coarse and dense blue oni hair. His mane was something he was proud of, though it being in this disheveled state was a source of discontent. 

Ibaraki-doji needed a bath.

He snorted, nostrils flaring. “Aki, I’m not tired yet.” 

The little red pseudo-dragon who made his home in Ibaraki’s luscious locks squeaked and skittered over to his owner and master, flitting onto one knee. Aki was the size of a small house cat at best, perhaps six pounds when sopping wet. Tiny wings too small for flight flapped and fluttered as Aki gesticulated up at the oni.

One great eyebrow was raised. “You found a game? What game is this, Aki?”

Since reuniting with Shuten-doji (who was now in a prettier, smaller and decidedly more human form), Ibaraki had taken to cleaning the convenience store he currently called home. After scaring the dokkaebi into vacating the place, the oni had destroyed it in a rage fueled by hurt pride. He’d flung drink cabinets like they were cardboard boxes, dented several of the walls and tore some of the refrigerated unit doors off their hinges. Popcorn, Cheetos, aluminum drink cans and fat-filled donuts had been strewn about haphazardly. 

Initially, Ibaraki cared not for the state of his dwelling. He only slept there to get out of the oily rain, after all. It wasn’t until Shuten-doji’s arrival (and the arrival of blasted ants) that cleanliness became a priority of sorts. If he was to restore his pride as an oni, he couldn’t live in a sty.

Mighty oni did not live in squalor. Shuten-doji, greatest oni of all, at least ordered his underlings to clean.

Aki, having disappeared into the one corner of the convenience store that had yet to be touched, reappeared pushing a large wooden box. Wider than it was tall and heavy enough that Aku had to push it rather than picking it up, Ibaraki was intrigued.

“What is this, Aki? Where did you find it?”

Plucking up the box while Aki squeaked and gestured, the oni placed it on his lap to open it with his hand. Inside was a plush, deep green velvet interior. Nestled in the center was a game board with black and cream-colored squared in a checkerboard pattern. On either side of the board were indentations for black and cream-colored game pieces. Ibaraki picked one up gingerly to inspect it.

Sniffing, he looked down at Aki. “It’s a horse! Looks like marble? It’s heavy.”

Squeak, squeak, squeak, chirp!

Placing the board on the ground in front of the musty mattress, Ibaraki-doji watched intensely as the tiny pseudo-dragon went about placing each piece on the board - white on the oni’s side and black on Aki’s side. The oni tilted his head, having pulled what he assumed to be instructions on how to play from the wooden box. 

He furrowed his brow. All English, none of which he could read. Tossing it aside, the oni figured it would be more fun to have Aki teach him instead.

“Alright Aki, what do we do?”

Chirp! Chirp, squeak! Trill~

“Okay, if you say so.”

Aki picked up a pawn with his tiny hands and moved it forward one square, towards Ibaraki’s disheveled army.

The oni snorted in return, puffing up his chest. “Aki, that is… you moved a nipple towards me?”

Squeak!

“I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I must answer in kind. My nipple will move towards yours.” Picking up his pawn, Ibaraki mimicked Aki’s movement and placed it one square forward. “I see I also have a horse, a fountain pen, two barrels, a tall sake bottle and a short sake bottle. What kind of game is this?”

Aki gesticulated again, attempting to explain without words how the game of chess was normally played to an oni who couldn’t even identify any of the pieces correctly.

Ibaraki, for his part, was at least jovial in his confusion. “Alright, so I am to take possession of your tall sake bottle. I see. Well, I think it is your turn, then.”

Aki grabbed the knights, having it leapfrog over another pawn and out into the field of battle. Impressed, the oni sat back and chuckled.

“Ah, so your horse had too much to drink and now ignores the rules! I wonder, can my horse do that too? Seems like a dangerous thing, Aki. Drunk horses. How can you ride a drunk horse? I can’t ride a horse at all! I’m too big. Unless they start making larger horses, but I think I will stick to riding on top of the smaller and less aggressive Hobarts.”

Moving his pawn on the far right of the board, Ibaraki continued. “You know, Aki, it’s just been you and me for so long. When I found you in that drain, all squished, I didn’t think much of it, but you’re really my first friend. You even heated my food! And now, I guess… I have more friends? Do you think Shuten remembers when he was an oni? I wanted to be as strong as him, and I followed him everywhere, Aki.”

The pair continued to haphazardly move pieces back and forth, the oni’s flagrant disregard for chess decorum making a chess champion somewhere cry. 

“Then, we were attacked by this human warrior, and Shuten said he would duel the man himself. Shuten… ended up losing.”

Ibaraki’s pointed ears slumped while reliving that memory, recalling the coppery scent of blood being thick in the night air. The warrior had burned the body and scattered the rest of Shuten-doji’s demonic army. It was never reformed.

“I will move my barrel into your wall of nipples, and now they are all drunk and cannot stand up!” One clawed hand gingerly knocked over each piece, Aki squeaking dramatically at the “loss” of three pawns. “I did not think I would ever see Shuten again, Aki. I thought, after the body was burned, that was it! But no, he came back! And now we can be friends again.”

As much as a power-hungry oni warlord could have friends, but Ibaraki was not one for details.

“Although, I am positive I’m stronger than Shuten now, but he’s still just as smart as ever, I think. And his hair is the same! It is strange to see him without his horns. His face looked a little naked without them. What do you think, Aki?”

The pseudo-dragon pushed his queen into a deluge of bishops and pawns, knocking two of them over.

The oni feigned surprise. “Oh no, you’ve attacked me with your fancy sake? Don’t you know my nipples are the basic rice wine sort? We’re regular drunkards! We can’t afford that!” 

Knocking over some of his own pieces, Ibaraki grinned toothily. “Shuu-dude is fine too. I don’t think I wish to be a dude like he is. The fish-person and the spider-person aren’t so bad, and the snake-man? Much less disquieting than the naga. Their lack of legs… it’s just not right. The one that smells burnt, with his big cat, he’s not so bad, either. I guess humans aren’t too terrible.”

After all, it was those humans (and demi-humans, by Ibaraki’s approximation) took time out of their day to visit him, ask him how he felt, how he was doing…

Was that what oni-Shuten did?

No.

New-Shuten was much… kinder. His entourage was much the same.

Ibaraki’s face screwed up with emotions he did not know how to process - appreciation, relief, acceptance. Brows furrowing, the oni did not notice his imminent defeat until it was too late. Looking down at the board in shock, he exclaimed, “Your fountain pen made off with my tall sake bottle!? Aki, you are truly a tactician worthy of praise.”

The pseudo-dragon reared up on his hind legs and danced, a white king in one hand and black bishop in the other.


End file.
